I know i shouldn’t be too depressed now because things will only get more depressing but i’m getting a feeling the Borgia’s wouldn’t be able to compete with what’s coming in the US
Following Trump’s executive order, a trans woman held at a federal prison was told she would be moved to a men’s prison.
Last Friday afternoon, Kara Sternquist, a trans woman in custody at a federal women’s prison in Fort Worth, Texas, was taken from her unit. A guard told Sternquist that she had an unexpected psychiatric appointment in the chapel.
“She was lied to,” said Deviant Ollam, a friend who speaks with her regularly by phone. “Once she was away from everyone else, they took her.”
According to Ollam, Sternquist told him that she is one of almost a dozen trans women who have been taken from the general population at FMC Carswell and moved into an administrative segregation unit that is typically used for inmates on suicide watch. (The Intercept has been unable to reach Sternquist directly, and an official at FMC Carswell declined to answer questions when reached by phone on Monday.)
The women were told they would be moved to a men’s prison, Ollam said, under President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, which directs the Bureau of Prisons to ensure “that males are not detained in women’s prisons” and that inmates don’t receive gender-affirming health care using federal funds. On Monday, Trump issued another bigoted order barring trans people from military service, which was quickly challenged in federal court.
Trans women who are forced to live in men’s prison facilities face disproportionate risk of sexual assault and violence, as the Bureau of Prisons’ manual on trans inmates, issued in 2022, acknowledges.
On Tuesday afternoon, a warden unexpectedly told Sternquist she could return to her unit for now, Ollam told The Intercept. “She’s still very worried but optimistic,” Ollam said after he got off the phone with her.
Sternquist’s four-day ordeal and ongoing uncertainty about where she will serve the rest of her sentence reflects the precarious position of hundreds of trans people in federal prisons, who are being targeted by Trump and his hard-right allies.
“The worst part for her is not knowing what will happen next,” said Allegra Glashausser, Sternquist’s attorney. “She doesn’t know whether she will be held with men. She doesn’t know if she will receive her hormones as scheduled. Everything is uncertain. I am exceptionally worried for Kara’s physical safety and her mental health.”
“Trans people in custody, and trans women, in particular, are bearing the brunt of the immediate harms of this executive order,” said Shayna Medley, a litigation attorney at Advocates for Trans Equality.
This is not Sternquist’s first experience facing a dangerous housing assignment in federal prison.
Trans Women in Federal Custody Face the Terror of Being Transferred to Men’s Prisons